As the density of information stored in automated magnetic tape libraries continues to increase, greater requirements are placed on the precision of mechanical positioning in order to successfully read and write data bits. The location of the read/write head in the direction across the tape’s width (termed the lateral direction) is actively controlled in order to maintain alignment between the head and data tracks, even in the presence of the tape’s lateral vibration. However, during repositioning, vibration is undesirably transmitted from the laterally moving head structure to the axially-moving tape because of frictional contact between the two adjacent surfaces. As an analog of that interaction, a model is developed here to describe frictional vibration transmission from a surface having prescribed lateral motion to a tensioned beam that travels and slides over it. The beam is divided into contiguous regions corresponding to free spans and the beam’s portion that contacts the surface. A critical engagement length between the beam and the surface exists for which vibration transmission at a particular natural frequency can be substantially reduced, and for a given mode, that length depends weakly on the surface’s position along the beam’s span. By contouring the surface to have portions of differing radii of curvature, the extent of vibration transmission can be reduced over a broad range of frequency.